The Hindu : Govt. to face adjournment move

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Tuesday, Jul 16, 2002

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Govt. to face adjournment move

By Neena Vyas

NEW DELHI JULY 15. The Opposition is planning to move an adjournment motion on the Jammu massacre tomorrow in the Lok Sabha and take the Government to task for failing to protect innocent lives. It is indicated that the Government will not resist the move as it is confident of being able to defeat the motion.

The Government's strategy seems to be to take the bull by the horns rather than allow the issue to linger and lead to daily disruptions of the House. It was also conceded that the massacre, admittedly the most ghastly after Kaluchak, was indeed a fit case for the Opposition to take up as an adjournment motion which calls for all business to be set aside so that the matter could be taken up urgently.

As a result, there will be no statement in the Lok Sabha on the massacre from the Deputy Prime Minister, L.K. Advani, as promised earlier — Mr. Advani or the Prime Minister, Atal Behari Vajpayee, would reply to the motion — and a statement could be made in the Rajya Sabha.

The motion is expected to be taken up immediately after question hour and under the rules, the debate will be completed and voting upon same day.

It is learnt that the issue came up at a meeting of party leaders called by the Speaker, Manohar Joshi, this afternoon. Several Opposition leaders — Shivraj Patil and Priya Ranjan Dasmunshi of the Congress and Somnath Chatterjee of the CPI(M) — said they were planning to move an adjournment motion. The idea perhaps was to test the Government reaction. The Parliamentary Affairs Minister, Pramod Mahajan, is believed to have consulted Mr. Advani on telephone before indicating that the Government would not resist the move. Several notices for the adjournment motion are expected to be in before 10 a.m. tomorrow.

This morning, there was a meeting between the Congress president, Sonia Gandhi and the CPI(M) parliamentary party leader, Mr. Chaterjee, where it was agreed that the two parties would cooperate and coordinate their moves in Parliament. It is learnt that Mr. Chatterjee was in touch with the Samajwadi party leader, Mulayam Singh Yadav, who would also coordinate with the Opposition parties.

During the debate on the adjournment motion tomorrow, the Opposition will ask the Government inconvenient questions. Why are such incidents taking place despite the mobilisation of troops on the border? Has the Government relied too much on Western powers to pressure Pakistan to end terrorist acts?

Has the Government not failed to meet its constitutional responsibility to safeguard the lives of its citizens?

Today, the Congress spokesperson, Anand Sharma, indicated that the party expected credible answers as the Opposition had given full support to the Government on all the steps it had decided to take to deal with the menace from across the border.

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